The Difference
by hUeS -of- h a z e l
Summary: You can only run for so long before you have to face yourself; sometimes, you can only see the difference when you're reflected in the eyes of another. Legend of Mana, 50 sentences, Escad/Rachel. Mostly post-game
1. the extras

**A/N:** This has got to be the oddest pairing I've ever come up with--and that's saying something. XD Anyway, these are fifty sentences for the pairing Escad/Rachel. YES, YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY. I haven't been approved over at LJ yet, but it's been like two months since I've submited my claim and they STILL haven't replied, so I'm damning it to hell and posting the first ten anyway.

I'm writing these to try and grasp Escad's character a little better, so anyone if anyone who writes him regularly ( and who hasn't already been scared away ) would like to help with that in their reviews, I'd be greatful.

CAUTION: many run on sentences and semi-colons and hyphens ahead, you have been warned.

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_the difference._

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**1. Cinnamon**

She was yelling at him and he was snapping at her and people were staring; mouth open in a retort, she steps forward to poke one pale, purposeful finger in his face, and for one odd moment he is distracted solidly by the green of her eyes and the cinnamon-sweet fragrance her sudden proximity brings.

**2. Bittersweet**

For the most part, he was an arrogant git who annoyed the hell out of her; but there were times—rare occasions when the nights were long and her heart was heavy—when all she wanted was a hand to stroke her hair and a shoulder for her to lean on . . . and he was _there_, always, his soft breath and gentle fingertips infusing her with a strength that made her body warm and her petulance shrink and her sadness melt away.

**3. Technology**

"What . . . _is_ this?" Escad asked one day while they were shopping, puzzling over an apparently modern object he was holding in his hand that was completely foreign to him; Rachel stared at him queerly as she asked, "Just how _long_ were you stuck in the Underworld for?"

**4. "What was that for?"**

One minute her eyes were on fire as she stared at him, angry and hurt and relieved all at once, and the next she was flinging herself at him, with her arms wrapped around his neck and her mouth pressed to his stubbly cheek and her tears warming his skin, and as she pulled away to look at him with luminous teal eyes he grunted dazedly, "What was that for?"

**5. Rumors**

'_There are rumors all through town about you now, sweetheart,_' her father's voice echoed through her head, and she couldn't help but roll her eyes and let out a sharp bark of laughter as he remarked, 'a_nd of some blonde fellow accompanying you—of course we were concerned at first, until I heard that he ran around in a skirt._'

**6. Sacrifice**

"SHIT," he had yelped, ducking just in time as Rachel's wayward Dryad spell cut through the place his neck had just occupied ( "HOLY MANA, I'm so sorry, are you okay—?!" ); unfortunately, his long hair wasn't so lucky, and Escad watched with a ridiculously copious amount of horror as a thick chunk of his smooth, silvery hair drifted to the ground in front of him.

**7. Reunion**

"Duelle!" she cried happily, running towards her old friend on light feet and shimmering wings, and Escad stared incredulously as she embraced the small warrior tightly; "Wait—you actually _know_ the onion?"

**8. Sword & Shield**

He was a Gato knight, proud and noble, and it was his unspoken duty to defend the weak and shield them from unjust wrath, sword in hand; so imagine his surprise when it was _he_ who was being protected by _her_—with her arms outstretched and the tingle of concentrated mana in the air, the enemy's attack was suddenly stopped short by a glowing sheild of energy as she stood over him, murmuring lowly in a tongue that was familiar yet all at once strange to his human ears.

**9. My happy ending**

"You're so _naïve_,"he told her harshly, his eyes so heavy with anathema and anger that she flinched.

**10. Windows of the soul**

They were pale and blue and usually filled with a quiet sort of arrogance that was subtle but nevertheless _annoying_—however, that one moment when she was close enough see the even softer specks of gold that dusted the surface of his eyes was one in which she was able to glimpse his soul, and suddenly she found herself face-to-face with a man who had lost everything except the past that still haunted him.

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	2. 1 to 10

**A/N:** Due to some confusion, I have claimed a different prompt table at a different community and am thusly continuing this fanfiction with sentences, themes and determination anew! ...don't ask, it's kind of an embarrassing story. XD

I love this pairing, HA

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_the difference._

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**#01 - Motion**

Secretly, Rachel enjoys watching him train; it's an art, she has realized, and there's a beauty in every breath Eascad takes, every shift in his stance, every swing of his blade, every muscle that ripples beneath his bronze skin.

**#02 - Cool**

He froze as she pressed a small hand against his forehead; it was soft and cool, and sent a strange shiver down his spine.

**#03 - Young**

"You're nothing but a child," he stated haughtily, ignoring her indignant squawk as he turned to survey the surrounding jungle.

**#04 - Last**

_Last straw_, Rachel thought, and with a furious cry yanked off her boot and flung it at the back of his head; it connected solidly with a very satisfying _WHACK_!

**#05 - Wrong**

"This is wrong," she whispered, pressed against the wall, trembling as his breath ghosted across her lips; "Why?"

**#06 - Gentle**

_He can be gentle when he wants to be_, she thought with a vague wonder as he wrapped her swollen ankle.

**#07 - One**

"Just try it," she pleaded, offering him a glazed, sweet-smelling pastry fresh from Jennifer's oven.

**#08 - Thousand**

He had fallen from grace as a knight a lifetime ago and now there was no one left to protect; yet as Escad gazes at a girl whose very blood he once swore he'd purge at any cost, the irony is almost painful as the realization that he'd die a thousand times over to protect her swells within his heart.

**#09 - King**

Rachel nearly slammed the mug of frothing ale down in front of a smirking Escad, and, with a mocking bow, asked bitterly, "Is that all, _Your Highness_?"

**#10 - Learn**

"Your magic is really rather impressive," Escad said passively as he watched her coax a rose into blooming with a lilting melody tumbling from her mouth; at her startled look, he cleared his throat and huffed, "But you still have a lot to learn," to which she rolled her eyes.

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	3. 11 to 20

**A/N:** Nothing to say really, except that I don't really like # 17. Or # 20. Oh well. =\ I'm going to try and elaborate on the more...complex areas of the relationship next. Namely, the fact that Rachel clearly has Faerie blood in her and, well, Escad's feelings towards this. That's pretty much what the title of this thing alludes to--the differences between men, between people, and the idea that, essentially, there _are_ none. We all have bodies, minds and souls. We all feel and calculate and question. We all love. We are all children of the same Creator, any way you look at it. I suppose that the EscadxRachel relationship is, really, an exploration of the truth that men can deny and ignore but can never really prove wrong, using two people who have spent a good deal of their lives running away and end up seeing facets of this truth in eachother and, together, in the world.

And, uh. Yeah. I guess I had something to say after all. XD

Onward!

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_the difference._

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**#11 - Blur**

In a blur of purple and blue she was at his side, crying out his name as warm blood steadily pooled around his body, seeping into the thirsty earth, staining her hands as she tried to stem his wounds, sobbing.

**#12 - Wait**

"Wait," Escad pleaded, reaching for her hand as she turned away, "Please."

**#13 - Change**

"Do you really think your _hate_ is going to change anything, Escad?"

**#14 - Command**

"Shut up!" Rachel suddenly snapped, and out of sheer shock, he did; "Just shut up!"

**#15 - Hold**

Escad held her then and she forgot everything else; he pressed his face into her hair, cradled her head with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her body and _held her_ like he would never let her go again.

**#16 - Need**

"I don't _need_ anything else," he whispered into her ear, and Rachel had to remind herself to breathe.

**#17 - Vision**

The dreams were getting progressively worse and worse, and although Escad was there every night she woke up sobbing--"It's okay, Rachel, I'm here..."--even _he _wasn't enough to chase away her fears; the only thing he couldn't seem protect her from was herself, and it killed him.

**#18 - Attention**

She had stopped to gaze at a particularly lovely piece of jewelry displayed by one of the vendors, enchanted; Escad watched her lift it delicately into the light, watched it glitter in her sun-lit eyes and found that, even though he knew he was staring, he couldn't bring himself to look away.

**#19 - Soul**

"Why do you suppose we have souls?" he asked completely out of the blue one day; Rachel stared at him as he gazed into the sky, and realized he was being serious (well, when _wasn't_ he?).

**#20 - Picture**

"Oh," said an old woman to her husband, watching as a tall swordsman passed escorting a charming young girl with iridescent wings, "Oh, look, aren't they a lovely couple?"

-


	4. 21 to 30

**A/N:** #25 is the idea that Escad visited Domina once before, specifically during LoM, and encountered Rachel in the pub. His reason for being there? I dunno. Maybe he was wondering how Fa'Diel had changed during his decade-long absence or something.

#30 stems from the curious parallel I saw between Rachel and Matilda; that is, their struggle with who they were, who people want them to be, who they _are_ at their core being, and how they each sought freedom, albeit in different ways and under different circumstances. But it's still there and still interests me deeply!

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_the difference._

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**#21 - Fool **

"I was a blind fool," he admitted wearily, quietly, as she watched his blue eyes shine in the moonlight.

**#22 - Mad **

Rachel looked like she wanted to pull out her hair as Alethia watched her stare daggers into Escad's retreating back; with a sympathetic pat, the blond woman commented, "He has that effect on most people."

**#23 - Child **

As Mark and Jennifer's eyes followed two familiar figures walking side-by-side down Domina's dirt road, she leaned her head against her husband's tense shoulder and told him gently, "She wasn't going to stay our little girl forever."

**#25 - Shadow **

Rachel never looks that particular man in the eyes when he comes to Domina; despite their pale, icy shade of blue, there's a darkness that she sees in them when he stares at her indigo hair, her shimmering wings, her teal eyes, one that summons a foreign, piercing cold within her bones, boring into her heart with driving purpose.

**#26 - Goodbye **

"I won't say it_,_" he hissed, clutching Rachel's unresponsive body to him desperately, "_Come back so I don't have to say it!_"

**#27 - Hide **

Escad looked away, the flaxen strands of his hair falling in such a way that obscured his eyes, and Alethia laughed despite herself; "You've fallen in love with her, haven't you?"

**#28 - Fortune **

_I can't believe I'm stuck with such a racist _ass, Rachel spat silently as she watched the man who called himself Escad warily from the corner of her eye.

**#29 - Safe **

"Lesson number one," Escad said quietly, calmly, as Rachel stared up at him with wide eyes, the tip of his blade lodged into the wall barely an inch away from her ear, "there's no such thing as 'safe'."

**#30 - Ghost**

"I choose to be _free_," she proclaimed, the iron of her will shining through the mystic color of her suddenly--painfully--familiar eyes.

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	5. 31 to 40

**A/N:** Next update is the last update. =[ -cries-

* * *

_the difference._

**#31 - Book**

"I think you'll like this," she said, and held out for him a leather-bound tome.

**#32 - Eye**

"OW," Rachel cried, "How the hell do women manage put this stuff on their eyes EVERY DAY?"

**#33 – Never**

"Have you ever considered cutting your—" Rachel shut her mouth as Escad fixed her with a withering glare, and she swore that his blonde head began shining prettier than usual for emphasis.

**#34 - Sing**

"_Lips, red as the berries in June; Red the rose, red the rose…Skin, pale as the light of the moon, gently as she goes…"_

**#35 - Sudden**

"And so I took my sword and bore it down upon—why are you staring at me like that?" he asked suddenly, and with a start Rachel cast her eyes away, red-faced as she fumbled for an excuse.

**#36 – Stop**

"STOP," Rachel snapped loudly; Escad froze, wondering dimly if he should be fearing for his life.

**#37 - Time**

"Heh," Rachel croaked brokenly, and Escad swore that he heard something inside of him break with it; "I guess I have all of eternity to figure it out, right?"

**#38 – Wash**

Escad offered a kind of sheepish, somewhat apologetic shrug as he watched Rachel hold up his soiled shirt with a curled lip; "Ugh," she said.

**#39 - Torn**

"I don't know," he told her—her hard eyes, her trembling lips, her tear-streaked cheeks; "I don't know what I want."

**#40 - History**

"Come on," she whispered, cupping his dirty cheek; "Let's make history."


End file.
